TIRUCHY: All was well when the new State government elaborately publicised the WhatsApp complaint number for any agricultural issues, particularly on procurement, but this has led to officials hesitating to take timely decisions, fearing they will land in unnecessary problems.

Officials feel the State government has yet to understand the ground realities of procurement, resulting in a huge accumulation of harvested kuruvai paddy in every DPC. The farmers, meanwhile, also appeal to the state government to ensure prompt and speedy procurement to prevent damage in the ensuing monsoon, which is predicted to lash across the region in the middle of October.

The new procurement year usually begins in the month of October. It was customary to get the government order a month before to prevent damage of harvested kuruvai due to the monsoon, and the new price would be effective from the month of September.

However, this year, the officials could not get permission for the new procurement in advance, and so the farmers from across the region had raised concerns and even staged a series of protests to commence a new procurement season from the month of September.

After several protests, the officials could get the order from the government, and the procurement with the new price had commenced around 10 days back. Despite the procurement commencing at the new price, the farmers faced another issue with the delay in the movement of procured paddy.

Despite there being a shortage of water, the farmers who had cultivated covered the target of 3.87 lakh acres with high-yield and drought-resistant paddy varieties like ADT 59, AST 16 and TPS 5 varieties for both early kuruvai as well as kuruvai cultivation, which could yield up to 80 bags rather than the usual 60 bags per acre.

While more than 60 per cent of the kuruvai harvest has been completed, the officials ask the farmers to wait for the procurement as they are yet to move the already stocked paddy from the DPCs.

Farmers said that the officials are keen on sticking to norms, and they limit the procurement to just 60 bags per acre from the farmers, and those farmers who achieved yields up to 80 bags had to wait for their next turn.

The farmers claim that the officials are in a dilemma to take timely decisions and to be flexible in procuring more bags, as they fear complaints on the dedicated WhatsApp number, which might land them in trouble.

“Previously, the officials would decide on their own whether to open DPCs based on the flow of paddy during the peak harvest time, but now, the officials hesitate as they need to explain every aspect and get the nod from the government, which would consume time and the farmers, by the time, opt for some alternate, but to approach the private players fearing damages due to long waiting,” said Kakkarai R Sukumaran, state president of Federation of Tamil Nadu Farmers Associations.

Sukumaran said that the dedicated number was already in existence for more than 10 years, but now the new government has made elaborate publicity on social media, which resulted in a poor procurement process, fearing any action from the government.

“Each DPC has a Bill Clerk, a helper and a watchman. If anyone threatens them with complaining about bribe collection, these people never turn up to the DPCs, which results in accumulation of paddy. So we find no other option but to convince the staff and give them a bribe of Rs 50 per bag to avoid stagnation of the paddy stocks, and so the publicity on the complaint number has gone as a fancy rather than serving a purpose,” Sukumaran said further.

Since the fine variety paddy cultivation was not adaptable this time due to the hot climatic conditions and water scarcity, most of the farmers preferred to cultivate the drought-resistant varieties and common varieties including CR 1009, and these varieties gave a good yield, but the officials prevented them from procuring beyond the permitted 60 bags per acre, citing the norms and only allowing the paddy with 17 per cent moisture condition.

“The moisture condition of any paddy variety would be between 18 and 20 per cent soon after the harvest, but the officials demand that farmers ensure 17 per cent moisture condition, citing the norms. So, we need to dry the harvested paddy for days to ensure the prescribed moisture condition. This leads most of the farmers to opt for approaching the private parties who never consider these factors but procure with less than the usual MSP,” said Pulavankadu V Mariappan, President, Federation of GA Canal farmers associations.

Mariappan claimed that harvested paddy has been piling up in every DPC across the region, as they are limited to procuring up to 1,000 bags each day, but the arrival is between 3,000 and 4,000 bags every day, and it would increase in the coming days. “It is the duty of the government to speed up the procurement as the monsoon rains are set to hit by the middle of October. If the procurement of harvested paddy is delayed, we fear they would get damaged as there would be cloudburst situations,” alerted Mariappan.